Established in 2006, the Keystone State Education Coalition is a growing grass roots, non-partisan public education advocacy group of several hundred locally elected, volunteer school board members and administrators from school districts throughout Pennsylvania. Our mission is to evaluate, discuss and inform our boards, district constituents and legislators on legislative issues of common interest and to facilitate active engagement in public education advocacy.

School leaders and educators across Pennsylvania kicked off the two-year
"Campaign for Fair Education Funding" on Tuesday night. About 750 discussed the issue via video
conference across 29 different Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units
(PAIU) locations throughout the state, all working together to help develop a
better formula for school funding.
More than 50 people working in the education system from Erie, Warren, and Crawford counties met at
the Northwest Tri-County IU 5 in Edinboro, virtually joining hundreds of
others.

"Speaking from the Lancaster-Lebanon
Intermediate Unit, Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators executive
director Jim Buckheit said 54 percent of funding for public elementary and
secondary education in Pennsylvania came from state coffers in 1974. By 2010-11 the share had dropped to 34.5
percent and Pennsylvania
ranked 43rd among the 50 states in government funding for education. Buckheit said Delaware provided 58.6 percent,
West Virginia 55.8, Ohio 43.2, Maryland 41, New York
40.1 and New Jersey
37.3 percent."

Coalition kicks off effort to
revamp PA education funding

Trib Live By Patrick
Cloonan Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014, 4:36 a.m.
A statewide coalition kicked off a “campaign for fair education funding” with a
Tuesday teleconference involving 29 intermediate units. “We are building a very diversified campaign
to bring all of the stakeholders into the room and together define what is fair
and how we get there, fair to the schoolchildren of Pennsylvania and fair to
the taxpayers,” said Monessen native and former Philadelphia state Rep. Kathy
Manderino, the campaign's manager, at Allegheny Intermediate Unit in Homestead. The campaign coincides with a year-long
effort to develop a new formula for school subsidies. A 15-member Basic
Education Funding Commission was formed in state Act 51 of 2014 with a goal of
making recommendations by June.

Pennsylvania's major party
gubernatorial candidates will meet for the second of their three scheduled
debates Wednesday morning at the studios of television station KYW in Philadelphia.

It is a morning political matchup, so that all clear-headed
Pennsylvanians can devote their full attention to the Pittsburgh Pirates
wildcard playoff game by the afternoon. There
are multiple ways to watch the debate. If you intend to vote - and we sincerely
hope you do - here's hoping you find one that works for you.

* The debate will be live-streamed as it happens on the CBSPhilly.com website.

* It will be televised live on Philadelphia's CW Network affiliate, WPSG,
and broadcast live on KYW Newsradio, at 1060 AM.

* Taped broadcasts will also be televised statewide on PCN on
Oct. 6, at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.; and again Oct. 7 at 5 a.m. and 9 a.m.

The debate is also likely to be carried on CSPAN at some point
next week, though it does not appear on their schedule yet. Interested readers
should check the CSPAN
website for scheduling information.

Tom Corbett squares off against Democrat Tom Wolf in the second
debate of the Pennsylvania
governor's race Wednesday morning on KYW Newsradio. And in a campaign that's gone pretty badly
for Corbett, the opportunity comes when there are a few encouraging signs for the
governor. Several independent polls have
showed Corbett trailing Wolf by well over 20 points. But a MercyhurstUniversitypoll,the first since Corbett's strong showing at last
week's debate, showed the margin at 15 points -- at least moving in the right
direction for the governor.

“This was an important meeting,
particularly for our area,” said Senator Hutchinson. “It is critical that rural
and small schools’ perspective gets heard and considered as the Basic Education
Funding Commission develops an adequate and fair system for distributing state
money to local school districts.”

SENATOR HUTCHINSON ATTENDS
MEETING ON BASIC EDUCATION FUNDING

Senator Hutchinson's website September 30, 2014

A state panel empowered to review Pennsylvania’s financial support for its
local school districts met in Clarion on Tuesday, according to Senator Scott
Hutchinson, who attended the session.

As part of its fact-finding mission, the Basic Education Funding
Commission met at ClarionUniversity to gather
testimony on state support for smaller school districts. ...The 15-member Basic Education Funding
Commission is tasked with developing and recommending to the General Assembly a
new formula for allocating state money for basic education to Pennsylvania school districts. The new
formula will take into account relative wealth, local tax effort, geographic
price differences, enrollment levels, local support as well as other factors.

Good Tuesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
It's a little early to start thinking about who might lead the state Senate
when the new session starts in January -- but not too early, it would seem for
freshman Sen. Scott Wagner, R-York.

Guaranteeing that things will be awkward around the Senate
watercooler, the voluble trashman sent Senate Majority Leader Dominic
Pileggi, R-Delaware, a letter calling on him to step down as the caucus'
floor leader, accusing him of "using [his] power to obstruct the
legislative process, frustrate the Republican caucus' agenda and prevent
Pennsylvania from moving forward."

It’s not like House Republicans suddenly changed their
mind on a cigarette tax that was declared dead in late June and delayed again this July
for nothing. A report in the Inquirer this summer detailed
the reason many House GOP members flipped: An amendment in the
cigarette tax bill allows charter school applicants rejected or ignored by the
School Reform Commission a second chance with the state Charter Appeals
Board. Previously, they had no avenue to appeal. (See the final version of
HB 1177 below; it contains both the cigarette tax language and the charter
appeal process.)

Hill-FreedmanWorldAcademy,
a magnet school in Northwest Philadelphia, has
won a National Blue Ribbon Award from the U.S. Department of Education,
Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced Tuesday. It was one of several schools in the area to
score the presitigious honor. The others are FranklinTowneCharterHigh School in Philadelphia,
MerionElementary
School in Lower Merion, MountSaint JosephAcademy
in Flourtown, and Norwood-FontbonneAcademy in Philadelphia.

PITTSBURGH -- A federal judge is
scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday from attorneys for PennsylvaniaCyberCharterSchool
founder Nick Trombetta on a motion to have evidence in his criminal case tossed
out because prosecutors allegedly violated attorney-client privilege.

Federal prosecutors, though, have denied the allegations,
saying in August court filings that Trombetta’s motion “is an accusation
without a shred of credible support.” U.S.
District Chief Judge Joy Flowers Conti will preside over the 10 a.m. hearing in
the WilliamS.MoorheadFederalBuilding in downtown Pittsburgh.
Trombetta, an Aliquippa native and East Liverpool, Ohio, resident, has
argued that undercover recordings made of him discussing issues with attorneys
for PA Cyber and the Trombetta-created National Network of Digital Schools,
which provides curriculum to PA Cyber, were privileged communications and
should not be used as evidence.

Judge: Hearing to remain open
for cyber-charter school founder Trombetta

By Torsten Ove / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette September 30, 2014 12:20 PM

The indicted founder of PennsylvaniaCyberCharterSchool
tried to block the public from a hearing today on his motion to dismiss
the charges, but a judge has ruled against him.

U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti today ruled in favor of
the media, which argued that the hearing for Nick Trombetta should not be
held in secret. Mr. Trombetta, charged
with siphoning some $1 million from the Midland-based school through a
collection of corporate entities he controlled, wants Judge Conti to throw
out some of the charges against him because federal investigators recorded
calls with his lawyers. He claims the recordings are a violation of the
attorney-client privilege. The U.S. attorney's
office says the lawyers did not actually work for Mr. Trombetta but for
the corporate entities he controlled, so the recordings are not a
violation.

PITTSBURGH
-- About the only issue settled during an all-day evidence suppression hearing
Tuesday for Pennsylvania Cyber School Charter founder Nick Trombetta was that
the federal court proceedings would remain open to the public. Other than that, the day saw U.S. District
Court Chief Judge Joy Flowers Conti presiding over a slow-moving defense
presentation as well as bickering prosecutors and defense attorneys. Conti
called for a nearly two-hour break during lunchtime for both sides to work out
a few agreements concerning recordings and transcripts — which were then
bickered over some more — before she ultimately continued the hearing until
Oct. 20 as the clock neared 6 p.m. Trombetta,
an Aliquippa native and East Liverpool resident, and his Washington,
D.C.,-based defense attorneys were in the federal courtroom in Pittsburgh to
try to get FBI recordings made by Brett Geibel and Jane Price, two Trombetta
associates-turned-informants, tossed from the criminal case in which he faces
11 charges, including mail fraud, theft, tax conspiracy and filing false tax
returns.

A new report from a trio of activist groups says Pennsylvania charter
schools have defrauded taxpayers of more than $30 million because oversight is
so lax. The researchers call for a
temporary moratorium on new charter schools, contending agencies are not able
to adequately monitor the 186 charters that already exist. The study by the Center for Popular
Democracy; Integrity in Education; and Action United of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh was to be
released Wednesday.

Trib Live By Megan
Harris Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014, 11:24 p.m.Pittsburgh city
officials outlined an early childhood education plan Tuesday that Mayor Bill
Peduto said could spawn a national pilot program. Peduto filed the plan with state officials,
who are set to issue a full grant application to the U.S. Department of
Education. The wish list — including
quality rankings, continuity of care, teacher compensation, green design,
digital learning and safety — is a precursor for a $250 million nationwide
preschool development grant program announced by Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan in August. Cities can apply through states for up to $20 million a year
for four years. Winners should be chosen and money distributed by mid-December,
Duncan said. The education secretary said Pittsburgh would be a “strong contender.”

Phillipsburg voters Tuesday gave
the school district permission to spend millions of dollars to update its older
facilities in light of the new high school opening in LopatcongTownship.

The Phillipsburg
School District asked voters to approve borrowing $8.5 million to pay
for $10.8 million in capital projects that will take place when students start
attending the new high school in the 2016-17 school year. The other $2.3
million will come from capital reserves.

Basic education funding, property tax reform and state
reimbursement for construction projects were among a host of “legislative
issues facing public education” reviewed at the Sept. 15 Wissahickon School
Board meeting. Tina Viletto, an attorney
serving as director of legislative services and grants development for the
Montgomery County Intermediate Unit who presented the overview, termed basic
education funding “a paramount issue that must be dealt with.”
State funding of public education, which was 50 percent in the mid-1970s, is
less than 34 percent today, with Wissahickon and other nearby districts in Southeastern Pennsylvania receiving far less, she said. “The past few years the only formula was the
hold-harmless provision,” Viletto said, under which each school district
receives the same state basic education funding as the year before, regardless
of whether or not the district’s population has shrunk or grown.

Tom Corbett and Tom Wolf are breaking out the big guns.
“Tom-my” guns, maybe?
Actually these are geek guns. Calculators.
The embattled Republican governor and his Democratic challenger are
waging a war of numbers — to say nothing of big-money television ads — over
education funding. Wolf, the York businessman,
continues to hammer away at what has been a constant criticism of the governor,
that he slashed $1 billion from education funding via the austere budgets of
his first term. Corbett is countering
with an ad of his own, pointing a finger at former Gov. Ed Rendell for papering
over serious budget concerns with millions in federal stimulus dollars. When
those funds expired, Corbett says he was left holding the bag. He points out,
correctly, that he actually has increased the basic education subsidy, and
notes this year’s subsidy of $10.05 billion is the highest in state history.

This article was reported in partnership with the
Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, with support from the Puffin
Foundation.

The older woman wore gloves as she stooped to pick up trash
outside SteelElementary
School, tucked into a quiet block of black working-class homes
in Philadelphia’s
Nicetown section. Apparently, the volunteer had made an impromptu decision to
stop by and tidy the place up on her way to wherever she was going. “This is a community school,” boasts Steel
School Advisory Council president Kendra Brooks, a parent of two Steel
students, standing next to banners proclaiming We Are
Family and We Love Our School. “We have generations and generations
of families who have been through SteelSchool. We have teachers
who have been here eighteen, twenty-eight years. So we’ve built a community.” The school’s tenor—what educators call
“climate”—seems positive. Inside, first-grade students are engaged in a reading
exercise, while third graders prepare to paint cutouts of butterflies after
learning about their life cycle. But the end-of-year calm belies a bruising
conflict.

Judging by the claims made by charters, one would think it but
child's play to make good on their boast of having higher test scores than
their public-school cousins.

Charters' ability to deliver on their promise of achieving
higher scores is, after all, their sole reason for existing and the only
justification for their annually diverting billions of dollars from public
schools. However, before reviewing the
evidence that refutes their claims, let us first consider how charters go about
"gaming the system" to their own advantage.

With few exceptions, charters cherry-pick their students,
admitting only those students who do well on tests. Rarely, do they accept students with learning
disabilities, emotional disorders, autism, ADHD, speech or language impairment,
behavioral problems, or immigrant children still learning English, since these
students tend to test poorly and would lower a charter's overall average. Public schools, conversely, are legally
required to accept every student who walks through their doors.

In this week's stories, all key public education stakeholder
constituencies -- parents, teachers, administrators, school board members,
community activists, and the general public -- add their voices to the ever
louder call for assessment reform. Too many politicians, however, give little
but lip service to the movement's demands while continuing to double down on
failed test-and-punish policies. The Atlanta and
Philadelphia
standardized exam cheating scandals are reminders of one kind of ugly fallout
from this obsession

Google wants to make backpacks a thing of the past by letting
students store all of their files online, and it's going to start giving
students enough space to actually do that. Students, teachers, and anyone else
using a Google Apps for Education account will soon be given unlimited storage and the ability to
keep files of up to a whopping 5TB in size on Google Drive. Unfortunately, just being a
student isn't enough to get this account — you'll have to attend an institution
that supports Google's education suite. But it should be a pretty compelling
offer for many, especially given that it's free to nonprofit educational
institutions.

Once you know you are eligible
to vote, the next step is to register. In Pennsylvania, you can register in person, by
mail and at various government agencies. Below you will find information about
how to register, as well as links to voting registration forms and
applications.

United Way Building 1709
Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia,
19103

PublicInterestLawCenter of Philadelphia

Philadelphia
has one of the worst childhood asthma rates in the country. We need more nurses
in Philadelphia's
schools to aid children suffering from this and other health issues. Join us to
discuss Pennsylvania
laws governing nursing services.

What About the Schools? A
Community Forum on the Next Governor's Education Agenda Oct. 15 7:00 pm WHYY
Philly

Pennsylvania's public schools, especially in Philadelphia, are
in dire straits. Many hope that the upcoming gubernatorial election will help
shine a light on the state's education issues. But how will Harrisburg politics
and financial realities limit the next governor’s agenda for education?

Join Research for Action, WHYY, and the United Way of Greater
Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey for an interactive community forum
designed to suggest an education agenda for the next administration—and to
assess the politics of achieving it. Hear
from local educators about what they see as priorities for the schools, and
from seasoned policy practitioners on the political realities of Harrisburg. Then, make your voice heard. Discuss your
thoughts and perspectives with other event guests and interact with the
panelists. You’ll come away from this spirited discussion with a more nuanced
view of the politics of education in both Philadelphia and at the state level.

Admission

This event is FREE and open to the public, but registration is
required.

Save the date – you don’t want to miss this! We are hosting the
national launch of Bob Herbert’s new book, Losing Our Way: An Intimate
Portrait of a Troubled America. You
might remember Mr. Herbert as the award winning and longtime columnist for
the New York Times. This book is especially exciting for us because
Bob came to Pittsburgh several times to interview parents and teachers in our
local grassroots movement and wound up writing three chapters on our fight for
public education!

Date: Thursday, October 9, 2014 Time: 5:30 – 6:30PM,
moderated discussion and Q&A.
Doors will open at 5 with student performances.
Followed by book signing.

PUBLIC Education Nation October
11The Network for Public Education will hold a historic event in one
month's time.

PUBLIC Education Nation will deliver the
conversation the country has been waiting for. Rather than featuring
billionaires and pop singers, this event will be built around intense
conversations featuring leading educators, parents, students and community
activists. We have waited too long for that seat at someone else's table.
This time, the tables are turned, and we are the ones setting the agenda. This event will be livestreamed on the web on
the afternoon of Saturday, October 11, from the auditorium of Brooklyn New
School, a public school. There will be four panels focusing on the most
critical issues we face in our schools. The event will conclude with a
conversation between Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown.

Session I:
"Forecasting the Fiscal Future of Pennsylvania's Public
Schools"

A panel of legislators and public
officials will respond to a presentation by Penn State Professor William
Hartman and Tim Shrom projecting the fiscal trajectory of Pennsylvania’s 500
school districts over the next five years and by University of Pittsburgh
Professor Maureen McClure discussing the implications for school finance of an
aging tax base.

Following an address by Eva Tansky
Blum, Chairwoman and President of the PNC Foundation, a panel of business
and labor leaders will discuss the importance of public school funding
reform to the competitiveness of regional and state economies.

The 2014 Arts and Education Symposium will be
held on Thursday, October 2 at the State Museum
of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, PA. Join us for a daylong convening of
arts education policy leaders and practitioners for lively discussions about
the latest news from the field.

The Symposium registration fee is $45 per person.
To register, click
here or follow the prompts at the bottom of the page. The Symposium will include the following:

Please join us for the 2014 PAESSP State Conference, “PRINCIPAL
EFFECTIVENESS: Leading Schools in a New Age of Accountability,” to be
held October 19-21 at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel, Pittsburgh,
Pa. Featuring Keynote Speakers: Alan
November, Michael Fullan & Dr. Ray Jorgensen. This year’s conference will provided PIL
Act 45 hours, numerous workshops, exhibits, multiple resources and an
opportunity to network with fellow principals from across the state.

Make plans today to attend the most talked about education
conference of the year. This year's PASA-PSBA
School Leadership Conference promises to be one of the best with new
ideas, innovations, networking opportunities and dynamic speakers. More details
are being added every day. Online registration will be available in the
next few weeks. If you just can't wait, registration
forms are available online now. Other important links are available
with more details on:

The slate of candidates for 2015 PSBA officer and at-large
representatives is available online. Photos, bios and
videos also have been posted for candidates. According to recent PSBA
Bylaws changes, each member school entity casts one vote per office. Voting
will again take place online through a secure, third-party website -- Simply
Voting. Voting will open Sept. 9 and closes Oct. 6. One person from the school
entity (usually the board secretary) is authorized to register the vote on
behalf of the member school entity and each board will need to put on its
agenda discussion and voting at one of its meetings in September. Each person
authorized to cast the school entity's votes received an email on Aug. 13 and a
test ballot was sent to them on Aug. 28. In addition, a memo from PSBA
President Richard Frerichs will be mailed in the coming days to all board
secretaries and copied to school board presidents and chief school
administrators.

It is an innovation conference where we can come together, both
in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will
be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas — from the very practical to the
big dreams.

About Me

Mark Twain: "God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board."
--------------------------------
School Director, School District of Haverford Township, since 1999;
Chairman, Delaware County School Boards Legislative Council;
Founder and Co-Chair, Southeastern Pennsylvania School Districts’ Education Coalition/Keystone State Education Coalition, Board of Directors, PA School Boards Assocation
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If you have any feedback or links to articles that might be a good fit on this blog please email me at lawrenceafeinberg@gmail.com
Thanks!